A peculiar Druid tidbit – 2.4

Now, I’m not a druid so I can’t say how great or terrible this is, but still I think it is a fun one to look at.

The talent is Nurturing Instinct. It’s a tier 5 Feral – 21st and 22d points in that tree – talent, which means it’s not usually going to be grabbed by most of the Healing Druids who’d have to give up treeform – sorry, Tree of Life – to get it.

Now right now, it’s an OK supplement to the tanking druid who has to toss off the once-in-a-while heals:

Increases your healing spells by up to 50% of your Strength, and increases healing done to you by 5/10% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.

But in 2.4, it changes:

Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.

If you’re a druid tank, how hard is it, really, to get 400 AGI or better? +400 healbonus AS A TANK?

I anticipate a lot fewer takers of the Tree of Life. Why? Tree of life adds 25% of spirit to your heals. Say you strongly invest for the mana regen – 600 spirit. That gives you +150 healbonus. A miserly 200 agi, and nurturing instinct instead of Tree of life give you more.

Oh – the feral tree being what it is, I expect most of the danger of this to show up in arenas. Almost makes me want to roll a druid.

Now, I’ve not thought through all the ramifications of this as a healer, but a few things come to mind. First, keep in mind the bear still has to shift to humanoid to cat (as far as I know, anyway). Which means for the Main Tank in deep nastiness this is probably not a Good Thing.

But as an offtank/emergency healer? ooooo. Toss in a macro or addon that swaps (some) gear as you change form so you’ve got a good gear healbonus as well, and tie it all to an ’emergency heal’ button… [changeform; changegear; cast instantheal; changeback — two presses, one GCD].

Now let me push this just a tiny bit further. Tree of life’s big thing is it gives a bonus of 25% of spirit to heals. You can sacrifice that to get 100% of AGI. Let’s assume, just for a moment, that you have 600 Spirit. If your AGI is over

This change is mostly to make ferals more viable “emergency healers” in 5 mans. Previously, even with the old Nurturing Instinct, in feral gear, their healing spells lacked enough punch to be effective enough to make it worth shifting out. This will also help them while soloing, as adding +heal from agility will also increase their HPM when they have to heal themselves after af fight, making it easier to not go oom when you have a mana pool of only 4-6k.

It will affect PvP somewhat, in the same way that it will affect 5 mans and feral soloing – ferals will be better at emergency (they’ll still go oom really fast) and self healing.

This won’t affect raid roles at all, nor will it affect resto specs at all. Islin is right, the 25% of spirit to +heal on your party is a lousy reason to take the ToL talent; 20% reduced mana cost on all HoTs is the clincher.

The major advantage to Tree of Life, as noted above, isn’t the aura. To be fair, the aura is a little more complex than “gives you 25% of your spirit as +healing”- it’s “gives 25% of your spirit as +healing whenever a heal hits a target in the same group as you”. Much nicer with multiple healers hitting your target (Free 150 +healing to all healers who target a tank? Please!)

The other thing, and the major reason, is, as noted above- mana costs are cut by 20% for spells you can cast. It’s shiny.

To clarify the bit on Druid shifting, shifting out of a form does not initiate the GCD, but shifting INTO a form does. With I believe patch 2.3, Druids can now shift between forms instantly; previously, we’d have to shift out to humanoid, then to form, now we skip the human part.

Anything that activates the GCD while attempting to switch will stop the switch though. For example, tanking druids can now macro a potion/healing-usable so that they lose their form, pop the pot, and get back to form instantly. If they were to try to throw up a life bloom after shifting out, they’d be caught in the GCD and in humanoid form… going splat.

“This change is mostly to make ferals more viable “emergency healers” in 5 mans. Previously, even with the old Nurturing Instinct, in feral gear, their healing spells lacked enough punch to be effective enough to make it worth shifting out.”

Change 5 mans to Arenas, and then I think we’re moving in the proper direction. Previous to Season 3, feral Druid gear had some amount of healing in addition to it’s offensive stats. Season 3 changed that with feral gear having completely offensive stats, there by making it far more difficult to play a hybrid dps/clutch-healer style.
With the healing arena weapons, and an estimated 600 agility (might be closer to 500, I’m not quite sure), feral druids should be pushing around 1200 healing. While not great, it’s certainly an improvement.

Just to note, “and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.” has been changed to a straight 20% healing done is increased, ala Fel Armor / Quick Recovery. Kitty Druids are squishy, but with 20% of 3600 attack power as additional healing, it might’ve been a bit of overkill.

Firstly, there are two reason’s why raiding druids take ToL , firstly is the 20% mana cost reduction to all spells that are castable in ToL form. Secondly, it’s for the _group_ buff. I currently raid with over 780 spirit, double that if I have Jaina’s buff in Mount Hyjal.. This means I give all healers in the raid an extra 195 or 390 Bonus Healing (BH) to all targets in my group. Where else are you going to find a buff this powerful for all the healers in the raid?

If I was going to drop ToL form, it would be to take some of the balance points, like 25% of my intellect turned into BH/SD. To me, the mana efficency is what I love about it so it’s not something I would consider while planning on raiding.

As was pointed out before, this change was to make feral druids a little more suitable for arena. It means they get a little more BH and get an increased % of healing done to them (similar to rogues if specced for it and warlocks with the correct armor spell) if they are in kitty form only. It also makes levelling a little easier for them since they can cast a HoT on themselves while grinding.

Just to re iterate, ToL buff does not effect all of your healing and only your healing, it effects everyone in the raids healing on anyone in your group.

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.